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Alberta results confound the pundits

Edmonton–It's a head-scratcher for pundits and even for the politicians themselves.

After a campaign where it appeared discontent could fuel a major upset, Alberta's Progressive Conservatives instead won a landslide victory Monday in an election where voter turnout appears to have been the lowest on record.

The Progressive Conservatives had been prepared to lose seats in Calgary and Edmonton but, in fact, gained more seats in the Legislature.

Premier Ed Stelmach led the Tories to 72 of Alberta's 83 seats – 10 more than the party won in the previous 2004 election under Ralph Klein. The party also improved its popular support – the only one to do so – with 53 per cent of the vote compared to 47 per cent the last time around.

The Alberta Liberals led by Kevin Taft won nine seats, down from 16. The New Democrats under Brian Mason lost half of their four seats and, as a result, official party status. The right-wing Wild Rose Alliance lost its single seat.

Well over half the eligible voters didn't bother to vote, with preliminary figures putting the turnout at only 41.3 per cent. That's down about three percentage points.

"Many people suggested before the election that change would be good," said Joseph Doucet, an energy specialist at the University of Alberta. "But at the same time, we have full employment in the province and, when a lot of people are working, they are well served themselves by the state of the economy and that probably leads to lower turnout."

The low turnout baffled Doreen Barrie, a political scientist at the University of Calgary.

"This election was amazing with so many people disconnected and so many issues getting people cranky you would think people would be excited about the prospect of voting out the government. Apparently not," she said.

"I think Alberta needs a shot of Red Bull. It really is amazing to me that a party that seems so unpopular could just coast through an election."

Barrie said people seemed to want to make issues out of climate change, affordable housing in cities such as Edmonton and Calgary, and oil royalty rates. But then most voters seem to have shifted to the default voting pattern.

Some observers had suggested Alberta's surging population, including a rising number of francophones, would erode the dominance of conservative political thinking.

But, like so many past Liberal leaders, Taft failed to loosen the Tory stronghold on rural Alberta, and even lost some of his party's turf in Edmonton.

Voters wanted to talk about health care, the environment and the economy, he said, but the Liberals couldn't compete with Tory spending and that muted their message.

"The odds were never in our favour," said Taft, who is consulting his party about his future as leader. "Only three times in 103 years has an election changed the government," he said, referring to Alberta's history of electing dynasties that rule for decades.

Some have suggested the Liberal party should change its name to distance itself from the federal Liberals, who hold no seats in Alberta.

Pundits confounded by the Tory gains marvelled that the man leading the cakewalk – Stelmach came just two seats shy of Klein's hallmark 2001 landslide – had been branded boring and staid, especially in contrast to his flamboyant predecessor.

"He came across this evening with a kind of charisma he was accused of lacking," said Klein on election night while working as a pundit for an Alberta television station.

"We're seeing a different Ed."

In his election night victory speech, Stelmach himself referred to expectations of a rough ride from voters.

"We all know we had a big battle on our hands," he said in his victory speech. "It's not how long you govern. It's how well you govern."

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